Ash and Oak bookcase

Finished this up just before my daughter was born in June 2012. This is for her room and the many books she already has. As you can see, it’s nearly filled. Ash was used for the frame, top, and front edges of the shelves. 3/4” oak ply for the shelves, and 1/4” oak ply for side panels and back. All pocket screw joinery, lots of pocket screws ;) I know all of those pocket holes are ugly, but that thing aint comin apart! I used minwax pre-stain conditioner, then a few coats of minwax red oak stain. I was trying to get a dark color to match her bedroom furniture. It turned out much darker than the furniture but looks OK, this was my first time staining anything. Finished with a couple of coats of minwax satin poly. You can see some of the mistakes I made, like sanding through the top ply of the plywood on the bottom 2 shelves. Duh, you don’t need to start with 80 on oak ply!

And a design mistake, I should have made the front stiles on the side panels thinner to account for the face frame thickness, I ended up routing a little v groove along where the face meets the side to break it up a bit. I think it was a good fix, that’s what it’s all about right? Learned a lot from this and I know this will last much longer than anything we could have bought retail. Thanks for looking.